Food & Water Watch recently submitted a citizen petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to remove China from the list of eligible processed-poultry exporters to the United States. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, the consumer watchdog claims to have found “serious mistakes” in the USDA approval process that allows the imported chicken. The watchdog asserts that (i) “[i]n its haste to get a final rule announced in time for a visit to the United States by the Chinese President in 2006, USDA missed required steps in the approval process and failed to send the rule to the USDA Office of Civil Rights for review”; (ii) “USDA staff made incorrect public statements that consumers would be able to avoid Chinese poultry imports, despite the fact that country of origin labeling requirements would not apply to processed poultry products”; (iii) “[p]ressure on…
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“As crime sagas go, a scheme rigged by a sophisticated cartel of global traders has all the right blockbuster elements: clandestine movements of illegal substances through a network of co-operatives in Asia, a German conglomerate, jet-setting executives, doctored laboratory reports, high-profile takedowns and fearful turncoats,” opens Globe and Mail food reporter Jessica Leeder in this exposé tracing the honey market from Chinese beekeepers, who are allegedly “notorious” for using banned antibiotics and diluting their products, to North America, where they are “baked into everything from breakfast cereals to cookies and mixed into sauces and cough drops.” Leeder claims that imported honey sold in North America “is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S., where tariffs have been implemented to staunch the flow…
The United States has reportedly decided not to file an appeal from a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that its ban on Chinese poultry imports, imposed in 2004 upon fears of an avian flu outbreak, was illegal. According to a news source, this ends the trade dispute. While the legislative ban expired within five years, under current U.S. law, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cannot allow poultry imports unless the foreign country’s food safety procedures are deemed equivalent to those used in the United States. A 2009 appropriations bill included this provision despite lobbying by U.S. trade organizations against it. See FoodNavigator-USA.com, October 27, 2010. Meanwhile, WTO has apparently decided to open to the public the second hearing on a complaint filed by Canada and Mexico, challenging the U.S. promulgation of country-of-origin labeling for cattle and hog imports. The parties reportedly requested an open hearing, which will take place December…
A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel has determined that the United States has violated its trade obligations by refusing to allow Chinese chicken parts into the U.S. market, an action that was apparently taken in a 2009 federal spending bill that denied the use of any U.S. Department of Agriculture funding to establish or implement any measure that would allow the importation. The law extended a five-year U.S. ban on Chinese chicken that was imposed during a bird flu outbreak. While the WTO can sanction countries that violate trade rules, this could take several years because the United States has the option to appeal the verdict. According to a news source, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has indicated that the restrictions were temporary and are due to expire soon. See USA Today, September 29, 2010.
Concerned about certified-organic agricultural interests in his state and consumer confidence in the “organics” label, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called on Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to “ensure that foreign imports, especially from China, meet the same high standards as domestically produced organic products.” In his September 20, 2010, letter, Schumer refers to media accounts questioning the validity of organic claims for Chinese agricultural exports and a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) audit that revealed “potential problems with oversight of Chinese-produced organic products.” Schumer urges the agency “to review its system of oversight for foreign certifiers, especially those operating in China,” to ensure that current practices comply with U.S. standards. Schumer states, “[G]iven China’s extremely poor track record on ensuring the safety and quality of its products, it is imperative that USDA thoroughly scrutinize its program to certify Chinese organic products to determine if it is managed and funded appropriately.”…
Federal officials have indicted executives of a German import company, a Chinese national and a number of companies, charging them with importing honey from China into the United States by illegal means that avoided the payment of duties and allowed product adulterated with antibiotics to enter the country. U.S. v. Wolff, No. 08-417 (N.D. Ill., filed August 31, 2010). The honey was purportedly shipped through other countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia, mislabeled and then shipped to the United States, thus avoiding some $78 million in anti-dumping duties applicable to Chinese-origin honey. The conspiracy allegedly began in early 2002 and ended in early 2009. The indictment includes 44 counts of illegal activity, including falsifying documents and placing into interstate commerce food with unsafe additives, specifically, the antibiotics norfloxacin and ciprofloxacin. Meanwhile, a coalition of honey producers has reportedly called on the industry to…
After Chinese food safety authorities recently found milk powder laced with melamine, police have reportedly arrested three officials from the Dongyuan Dairy Factory in Qinghai province and three dairy suppliers from Hebei province. Another 41 suspects have apparently been detained. More than 225 tons of contaminated milk powder have been seized, and authorities believe it is leftover from the batches of melamine-tainted milk powder that should have been destroyed in 2008 when a massive contamination scandal sickened more than 300,000 children and was linked to the deaths of six infants. Producers added melamine to milk powder to increase its protein content, but the required protein level in dairy products has since been reduced to discourage the use of additives. According to a press report, investigators are seeking evidence that local oversight authorities may have been derelict in their duties and will punish those found responsible. Chinese consumers have reportedly lost confidence…
Chinese health experts have reportedly estimated that “at least 30,000 children developed early maturity” in Shanghai alone, raising concerns about food additives and pesticides allegedly laden with sex hormones. According to an August 18, 2010, China Daily article, one doctor with the Beijing Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital has suggested that “early maturity in Chinese children is as high as 1 percent, nearly 10 times the rate in most Western countries.” The physician apparently attributed the condition “to the rising amount of estrogen in the food chain as the result of pesticides being sprayed on fruit and vegetables.” Although China Daily noted the 2009 Food Safety Law and other attempts to regulate food additives, it also suggested that enforcement has been difficult if not “impossible.” As one researcher with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention purportedly said, “China has 200 million scattered rural households that produce food, and…
The Chinese Ministry of Health has apparently announced an investigation into claims linking infant formula manufactured by Synutra International, Inc., to early onset puberty. According to state-run media, the ministry has assembled a panel of nine experts to examine whether the formula caused three infants ages 4 to 15 months to develop prematurely. The group will work with local authorities in Hubei Province to test milk powder samples taken from the homes of the infants in question. See Xinhau News Agency, August 12, 2010. The decision came after China Daily reported that doctors identified excessive levels of two hormones, estradiol and prolactin, in the children, thus sparking public speculation about tainted formula. Synutra, however, has since joined its milk powder supplier, New Zealand based Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd., in denying the rumors, which have noted that both companies were caught up in a 2008 scandal over melamine-tainted dairy products. As Synutra…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organics Program (NOP) has announced a settlement agreement with one of the nation’s leading organic certifiers, which had allegedly allowed inspections of Chinese organic food operations by auditors with a conflict of interest. Under the agreement, Nebraska-based Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) will be prohibited from certifying organic operations in China for one year and can be approved for re-accreditation as a certifying agent in China only if it hires inspectors with no connection to governmental or quasi-governmental entities. According to a press report, OCIA allowed government-affiliated inspectors to inspect farms operated on government-owned land and failed to properly oversee the inspectors’ activities. NOP apparently discovered the conflict during an August 2007 onsite OCIA audit and proposed revoking OCIA’s accreditation in China in July 2008. The agreement does not affect OCIA’s accreditation as an organic certifier in the United States, Canada and Latin America.…
